Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Sikulume., sentence 29
Some of them are skilful in forming knots with thongs and pieces of wood, which it taxes the ingenuity of the others to undo.
Who acts: Some, wood · What happens: be, form, tax, undo · To what, where: knots
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Sikulume.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Some, wood), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.
Mova's own parse. This tree may be wrong.
The tree
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Some | some | DET | PronType=Ind | 5 skilful | nsubj |
| 2 | of | of | ADP | _ | 3 them | case |
| 3 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 1 Some | nmod |
| 4 | are | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 5 skilful | cop |
| 5 | skilful | skilful | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 6 | in | in | SCONJ | _ | 7 forming | mark |
| 7 | forming | form | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 5 skilful | advcl |
| 8 | knots | knot | NOUN | Number=Plur | 7 forming | obj |
| 9 | with | with | ADP | _ | 10 thongs | case |
| 10 | thongs | thong | NOUN | Number=Plur | 7 forming | obl |
| 11 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 12 pieces | cc |
| 12 | pieces | piece | NOUN | Number=Plur | 10 thongs | conj |
| 13 | of | of | ADP | _ | 14 wood | case |
| 14 | wood | wood | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 pieces | nmod |
| 15 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 taxes | punct |
| 16 | which | which | PRON | PronType=Rel | 18 taxes | nsubj |
| 17 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 18 taxes | nsubj |
| 18 | taxes | tax | NOUN | Number=Plur | 14 wood | conj |
| 19 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 20 ingenuity | det |
| 20 | ingenuity | ingenuity | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 taxes | appos |
| 21 | of | of | ADP | _ | 23 others | case |
| 22 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 23 others | det |
| 23 | others | other | NOUN | Number=Plur | 20 ingenuity | nmod |
| 24 | to | to | PART | _ | 25 undo | mark |
| 25 | undo | undo | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 20 ingenuity | acl |
| 26 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 skilful | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | present | Some of boys | skilful property | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | form | gerund | Some of boys not said here | knots | with thongs and pieces of wood and taxes | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location knot=Theme | |||
| 3 | tax | wood and taxes | clay nsubj; the ingenuity of the others appos | tree rules | |||||
| 4 | undo | to-infinitive | wood and taxes not said here | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.
Text: «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Project Gutenberg book 71335 (public domain in the USA). Tree: Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/32/29/